Cigarette extinguisher



Nov. 17, 1953 J. B. FISHER CIGARETTE EXTINGUISHER Filed Jan. 13, 1950' Ml/cwr Jnmss B. FISHER, 5/ we (12A. nrroE'n/E/a.

Patented Nov. 17, 1953 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 4 Claims.

The present invention relates to a cigarette extinguisher especially adapted to be used in connection with ash receivers of one kind or another. In referring to cigarettes, of course it will be understood that the principles of the invention can be adapted to other similar smoking articles, but, owing to the wide use of cigarettes, it is to be most abundantly used in connection with them.

Heretofore, many efi'orts have been made to provide ash trays that will extinguish cigarettes promptly without slow glowing and smoking thereof, and without the continued burning that is apt to cause fires. Among the difliculties with such cigarette receivers have been the fact that they were slow acting and not reliable, that they did not so contain the cigarettes as to take them out of sight, and that they required an unnecessary amount of mechanism to be effective.

The objects of the invention include the over coming of the foregoing difficulties and the provision of a very simple cigarette extinguisher and ash receiver that is always dependable in operation and is inexpensive to manufacture.

It will be seen that this extinguisher requires a minimum number of moving parts, with no levers or other operating members to be moved by the user. It employs the tubular principle, but without requiring a tube of such small diameter that th cigarettes become packed therein. It has retaining means to hold the cigarette to be extinguished, within the tube, but the retaining means cannot snag the cigarette to prevent proper expulsion thereof from the tube. Other features will appear from the description to follow.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a plan view of an ash receiver with the cigarette extinguisher thereon;

Figure 2 is a side elevation partly broken away of the extinguisher of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is an enlarged vertical section through the upper part of the receiver and through the cigarette extinguisher, taken on the line 33 of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a bottom view of the upper parts of the ash receiver;

Figure 5 is a side elevation partly in section of the retaining means in the cigarette extinguisher;

Figure 6 is a sectional view through the cigarette receiver, showing its effect on cigarettes;

Figure '7 is an elevation of a modified form of ash receiver with the cigarette receiver mounted thereon; and

Figure 8 is a section on the line 8--8 of Figure 7.

The cigarette extinguisher of Figures 1-6 is here shown as mounted upon a receptacle It. For illustrative purposes, this receptacle [0 is shown as having an upwardly extending top flange H (Figure 3) to receive what may be called the base portion l2 of the extinguisher. This base portion is circular, having an outer flange l3, by means of which it is fitted over the flange ll of the receptacle l0. Inwardly of the flange l0, it has a downwardly extending conical chute portion N that terminates in a circular opening IS.

A plurality of brackets t6, here shown as three in number, are of arcuate shape, each being attached at one end to the underside of the conical portion I 4 in such wise that its other end extends through the opening l5 and can be attached to a shield I! that is also more or less conical in shape and is hollow. This shield has a lower dimension that is somewhat smaller than the opening l5, so that there is an annular passage 18 between the lower end of the shield l1 and the lower end of the conical portion M of the base. By the foregoing arrangement, the conical shield I1 is substantially rigidly supported upon the base member l2.

The conical shield I! supports a tube 20 that is illustrated in vertical position. This tube preferably flares out at its upper end as shown at 2|. Its lower end preferably has a cut-away 22 on one side and a vertical slit 23 on the opposite side, the result being that the effective bottom edge of the tube 20 is the top edge of th cut-away 22. The diameter of the tube 20 is slightly greater than the diameter of a cigarette. Owing to the construction that will be described, the minimum inner diameter of the tube 20 may be sufficiently great that a cigarette will freely pass through it without the possibility of becoming jammed therein and without the possibility of serious accumulation of tar on the interior of the tube. For example, the inner diameter of the tube 29 may be approximately 1% of an inch, which is about of an inch greater than the diameter of a conventional cigarette.

Adjacent the lower end of the tube 20, there is a combination retainer and deflector. To this end, a cover member 25 is attached to or formed integrally with the lower end of the tube 20, and it covers the slit 23. A cross section of the cover 25 is approximately U-shaped, as indicated in Figure 4. Its upper end extends up beneath the hollow shield H. A U-shaped swinging hanger 28, that may be made of wire or the like, has its ends swingably mounted in the sides of the cover 25, the cover and parts upon which it is mounted thereby comprising a support for the hanger. The mid-portion of the hanger 28 depends toward the bottom of the tube 28 and lies across the lower end of the slit 23, at which point it supports a roller 21. This roller is thus rotatable on the bight portion of the hanger 28 and extends through the slit 23 so that it enters the lower end of the tube 28 opposite the cutaway portion 22. A very light torsion spring 28 acts between the cover and the hanger 26, to urge the wheel to project into the slit 23 with its edge toward the axis of the tube 28.

The base may be provided with a suitable number of cigarette rests 38.

A modification of the mounting of this device is shown in Figures 7 and 8. This modification is particularly adapted to use on automobiles or the like whereon it may be mounted, for examples, on the instrument, steering column or the panel. In this arrangement, there may be a supporting ring or the like that may fit over the open end of o. receptacle or may be otherwise attached to the instrument panel or other suitable part. In this embodiment, the tubular part 28 and its assembly may be the same as the previous modification. It has the cut-away notch 22 at its inner end, and it has the slit 23 through which the wheel 21 projects. The wheel is rotatably mounted on the inner end of the hanger 26 and is yielda'bly urged toward the axis of the tube 28 by the spring 28. The part of the wheel 21 nearest the axis of the tube must be below the top edge of the notch 22, which top edge, in this sense, constitutes the bottom edge of the tube itself. In this modification, the tube 28 is mounted in an outer tube 38 that provides an extension 39 outwardly of the flaring end 2| of the tubular member 28. This extension 39 is adapted to receive a cigarette or the like and to support it at rest, as well as to aid in guiding it into the tube 28. The tube 28 may be suitably soldered or otherwise attached to the member 38, and that member, in turn, is secured to the supporting ring 35. A shield 48 extends upwardly from the tube 38 and extends within a short distance of the limits of the ring member 35 so as to provide a substantially arcuate space ll through which ashes and the like may be discharged into the receptacle (not shown) to which the ring 35 is attached.

With this arrangement, it will be seen that the tube or extinguisher part is mounted at the side of the base, which latter is in the form of the ring 35. This type of device can be mounted at an angle to the vertical, and indeed can be mounted horizontally, but it obtains greater utility when mounted out of the horizontal because then ashes may be discharged against the down wardly flaring shield 48 so that they will pass into the receptacle upon which the supporting ring 35 is mounted.

Operation Referring first to the principal embodiment of the invention, it will be seen that it has all the facilities of the usual ash receptacle in that it has the cigarette holders 38 and it has the base of the extinguisher so designed that the ashes may be discharged against the inwardly flaring conical portion l4 and pass through the annular passage 18 into the receptacle 18. The passage l8 preferably designed to be too narrow to 4 receive a cigarette. Consequently, cigarettes that may be rested upon it rather than upon the rests 38 will not fall into the receptacle l8 and smolder therein.

In extinguishing, a cigarette is merely inserted into the tube 28 with its lighted end downwardly and dropped. The first cigarette inserted will fall down until its lower end engages the radially inwardly projecting portion of the wheel 21. The spring 28, although a very light hair type of spring, is of sufllcient strength to cause the wheel 21 to support the cigarette within the tube. Owing to the close fit of the cigarette within the tube, the lack of an unobstructed oxygen course through the cigarette, and the usually cold temperature of the tube 28, the cigarette shortly will become extinguished.

When a second cigarette is put in above the first, the lower end of the second cigarette, upon being pressed upon the upper end of the first, causes the first cigarette to be forced down through the lower end of the tube 28. As illustrated in Figure 6, the cigarettes that are normally discarded are usually short so that they do not extend the full length of the tube 28, the total length of which is preferably almost the equal of the standard cigarette. A second cigarette, such as that shown at B in Figure 6, is likely to cause the first cigarette A to be discharged further down toward the receptacle l8, but it may not cause it to leave the tube 28. Then the second cigarette B, thus located in the tube with the cigarette A also in the tube, will become extinguished very shortly because the first cigarette A substantially blocks all passage of air through the tube. It has been found that the second cigarette in such instances will become extinguished in the matter of a relatively few seconds, and even quicker than the first.

When the third cigarette C is disposed in the upper end of the tube 28 and forced downwardly, it causes the first cigarette A to move down and become discharged into the receptacle. It has been found that the cigarettes A and B are likely to become somewhat fused together by the burning action of the lower end of the cigarette B prior to its extinguishment. However, the wheel 21 applies a force from the light spring 28 against the lower cigarette A opposite the notch 22. This force causes the lowest cigarette A to be deflected away from the axis of the tube 28, as is illustrated in Figure 8, so that as it is finally forced downwardly the deflecting action will break it away from the cigarette B and cause it to drop fully into the receptacle l8. In the meanwhile, the cigarette B will remain against the wheel 21 and will adequately restrict air flow through the tube 28 so that the cigarette C goes out very quickly.

The action of the modification in Figures 7 and 8 is the same.

In both, therefore, the tube 28 is the thing that extinguishes the cigarette, and that extinguishing action is particularly enhanced after one cigarette has been disposed within the tube. However, the tube 28 may be large enough with respect to the ordinary cigarette that tarring action on its inner wall is minimized. Heretoiore, the tubular type of cigarette extinguishers have largely relied upon a snug fit of the cigarettes at least at some point within the tube to restrict the flow of oxygen and cause early extinguishment. The present arrangement can employ a looser tube with the minimization of sticking of cigarettes therein, either by their own deformation or by the accumulation of foreign matter, and yet can provide for the quick extinguishment of cigarettes owing to the fact that a previously inserted cigarette acts as a contributing means to the restriction of oxygen flow through the tube. In this, the yieldable means at the lower end of the tube functions to retain the earlier deposited cigarette for the explained function.

But, further, the yieldable means at the discharge end of the tube acts not only as a retaining mechanism but also as an expelling or discharge mechanism to eject the lowest cigarette from the tube when it is fully moved toward the lower end of the tube. This latter action comes about because of the cooperation of the spring-urged retaining and pressure member 2'! opposite to the cut-away portion 22 of the tube.

Of course the tube 25} has sufiicient length to support any cigarette, however sli htly used, that is disposed in it. Also, the receptacle 19 preferably should be long enough so that a very slightly used cigarette extending from the bottom end of the tube 22 at the point of discharge therefrom is not jammed against the bottom of the receptacle. In other words, the bottom of the receptacle should be in excess of a cigarette length away from the lower part of the tube 20.

It should be evident that modifications of the retaining means and other elements of this combination can be made. In this connection, it may be commented that the wheel 2? as a retaining means has a distinct advantage because its rotatability enables the cigarettes to be forced down with much greater ease than would be true with merely a non-rotatable spring-like member at this point, and it will not snag the cigarettes. Likewise, in certain cases, the receptacle may be dispensed with and the extinguished cigarettes may be discharged into the open as on a motor vehicle, for example.

All such modifications of details are contemplated within the claims to follow, together with such other equivalents as will be understood from a knowledge of the art.

What is claimed is:

1. In an extinguisher for cigarettes and the like, a member having a passage means therethrough slightly larger than the diameter of a cigarette, through which the cigarette may pass, yieldable cigarette retaining means including a roller having an edge extending into the passage means and yieldable means mounting the roller to hold its edge so, the yieldable means being adapted to apply a force to the roller sufficiently great to overcome the force of gravity on the cigarette but yieldable to a force applied to the cigarette to discharge it through the passage means.

2. In an extinguisher for cigarettes and the like, a member having a passage means therethrough slightly larger than the diameter of a cigarette, through which the cigarette may pass, yieldable cigarette retaining means including a roller having an edge extending into the passage means and yieldable means mounting the roller to hold its edge so, the yieldable means being adapted to apply a force to the roller sufliciently great to overcome the force of gravity on the cigarette but yieldable to a force applied to the cigarette to discharge it through the passage means, the innermost part of the roller being below and opposite the edge of the member at the discharge end of the passage means, so that the yieldable member may laterally deflect the cigarette discharged through the passage means.

3. In an extinguisher for cigarettes and the like, a member having a passage means therethrough slightly larger than the diameter of a cigarette, through which the cigarette may pass, yieldable cigarette retaining means including a roller having an edge extending into the passage means and yieldable means mounting the roller to hold its edge so, the yieldable means being adapted to apply a force to the roller sufiiciently great to overcome the force of gravity on the cigarette but yieldable to a force ap plied to the cigarette to discharge it through the passage means including a hanger for the roller, a pivotable support for the hanger, that is spaced from the axis of the roller, and spring means urging the hanger and roller toward the axis of the passage means.

4. In a cigarette extinguisher, a base to fit over a receptacle, the base having a centrally and inwardly extending portion with an opening at its inner end, a downwardly and outwardly extending shield above the opening and having its lower edge spaced from the base to provide an ash slot; a tubular member mounted on the shield, and extending therethrough so to have an outer end and an inner end, the tube having a length approximately that of a standard cigarette, one side of the inner end of the tube having a vertical slit, a cover of U-shaped cross section attached to the side of the tube over said slit and beneath the shield, a U-shaped hanger alongside the tube with a pivotal connection to the sides of the cover at the end of the cover, a wheel rotatably mounted on the hanger adjacent the slit, light spring means urging the hanger toward the tube to dispose the edge of the wheel through the slit, the lower edge of the tube opposite the wheel having a recessed portion, and means on the base for attachment to a container.

JAMES B. FISHER.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date Re. 21,303 Harper Dec. 19, 1939 431,996 Mediord July 8, 1890 1,301,933 Gregor Apr. 29, 1919 1,655,293 Reece Jan. 3, 1928 1,904,084 Riley Apr. 18, 1933 1,999,289 Glomb Apr. 30, 1935 2,231,776 Seelinger Feb. 11, 1941 2,233,324 Palmer Feb. 25, 19%1 2,260,507 Campbell Oct. 28, 1941 

